January 17, 2014

While you were neutral about Yarmouk

While you were neutral about Yarmouk

While you were insisting on neutrality about Yarmouk, the Syrian regime dropped barrel bombs on it. Mohammad Al Far. Husam Abo Ahmad. Mohammad Tafori. Mohammad Suhaib Al Qides. Ala’a Fri’j. These men are all dead. Mohammad Taha would later die too when he, along with a larger demonstration, approached a regime checkpoint in frustration after the carnage rained on them from above.

The Pro-Palestinian movement was delayed in picking up on the tragic unraveling of Yarmouk. It took the work of a great deal of dedicated activists to force it into the forefront of the solidarity movement’s agenda. What couldn’t be predicted, however, was that, in the place of silence, an ugly neutrality would hover over the new-founded concern. And that said the neutrality was often an unconvincing veil for something much more vile. Perhaps, in our naivety, we believe that when Yarmouk became visible, it would be nearly impossible to omit the clear fact that the siege was being imposed by the Syrian regime. Instead, it was the oppositional fighters in the camp who fell under the spotlight. A chorus emerged, one familiar enough to evoke a surreal sense of Déjà vu.

Hello. Are there certain political groups in Syria you would recommend as having a good overall orientation?
I heard of a Left Current group, which says its members are not involved in fighting, but supports the rebellion.
From them I heard of Coordination Committees doing democratic groundwork. However, assuming it’s the same group, Wikipedia says about them:
“In August 2011, LCCSyria declared that it understands the calls for internal armed opposition to the Syrian government and international military intervention, but opposes both.”

Regarding Yamouk, it is tragic that so many refugees would get kicked out of their country and caught in the proxy war.

It says in their most recent post apparently that they still like peaceful protest;
“Andan people joined the Syrian Peaceful Uprising asking for freedom and committed for being always protesting peacefully… At this stage we believe that it’s vital to raise our field peaceful strife until we have our democratic pluralistic country for all Syrians… we know that any storming for our village will be only to put off our daily peaceful demonstration and to suppress the peaceful demonstrators, speared damage and looting private property, and committing more massacres at the first place. We also stress that we will deal with any kind of military or security storming with bare chests and peaceful demonstrations.
Long live Syrian Revolution”